My daughter is an avid reader, and has been since she discovered Junie B. Jones in first grade. At ten years old, she’s now sharing her love for books with the neighbor kids. For the past month, she’s hosted a project she calls Bookworm Wednesday. She invites neighborhood children to come to our home, check out her collection of books and listen to a story.

Watching her coordinate this project has reminded me how excellent reading skills have helped in all aspects of her education. It’s helped her comprehension on tests and in textbooks, strengthened her imagination, and it’s given her an avenue for creativity. And the ability to read well will serve her in many ways, for years to come.

But interest in reading starts long before children can decipher letters.

Search Institute has identified Early Literacy as one of the 40 Developmental Assets, which means research shows it’s a characteristic of healthy, caring, resilient kids. The more assets youth have, the more likely they’ll resist risky behaviors in the future. Search defines early literacy as: Child enjoys a variety of pre-reading activities, including adults reading to her or him daily, looking at and handling books, playing with a variety of media, and showing interest in pictures, letters and numbers.

A study by the National Institute for Literacy, found that parent involvement in teaching a child pre-literacy skills has a positive impact on that child becoming a reader. Although the key is to just read with your child every day, the NIFL offers free booklets and brochures to parents and educators that explain simple ways to incorporate literacy lessons into this daily reading.

Here are a few ways to build literacy skills:

Read with your child every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

Encourage your child to bring you favorite books.

Point to pictures and name them out loud, and encourage your child to do the same.

Watch to see if your child sometimes makes eye contact when you read aloud. That tells you she’s paying attention.

Talk with your child about things you’re doing and what’s happening around you.

Be patient when your child wants to read the same book over and over again.

Encourage your child to “play” with books, pick them up and turn the pages.

Listen when your child “pretends” to read a book, even though they’re not the words on the page.

Give your child paper and crayons, to scribble, make pictures and pretend to write.

(Adapted from A Child Becomes a Reader-Birth Through Preschool. Get your free copy at www.nifl.gov.)

Jennifer, at Snapshot, hosted a clever project last winter called “Will you Read to Me?” Her premise was simple – that we set goals for reading to our kids. What will your goal be?

Thanks for joining in to build assets in your kids! I look forward to seeing you again next month for Positively Speaking.

Comments

It is so important to support literacy and together we can change the future of America. We can make a difference for our children by reading to them and providing access to books in the classrooms, schools, and libraries.

I’m really thrilled to read this! I’m a WAHM of three. My profession is literacy advocacy–I work with parents on just exactly this topic. I’ve been doing it for seven years.

One of the changes that has happened in the last 3-4 years is that a rising number of college-educated new parents don’t read to their kids! It is shocking, but true. They somehow think that they themselves just sort of deserved to fall into their lifestyle, without realizing what their own parents did to get them there. Or they didn’t come from an educated family background. Or they farm out the raising of their children to nannies or au pairs. Either way, they don’t realize the importance of reading to their children from birth–or younger.

If only these parents understood the progression: another study found that children who have been read to 2,000 times before entering kindergarten–that’s roughly one bedtime story a day; could be repeats in there–have no trouble with learning to read.

BUT–kids who are not reading independently by age 8 rarely, if ever, read at grade level throughout their school careers. 38% of both 8-year-olds and 12th graders can’t read beyond a basic level; 64% of both levels cannot read proficiently.

So strong is the link between illiteracy and crime that many states look at the reading scores of 8-year-olds in projecting prison bed use.

Another sobering statistic: 85% of prison inmates nationwide are functionally illiterate. When taught to read, only 15% will return to prison.

So thanks very much for running this article! I need all the help I can get in educating parents on this matter!

What a great topic… its soo hard to taken that time to slow down and remember to read… my son who is 6.5 has always had book time every evening in lou of the TV. I think it has given him a huge advantage in terms of his comprehension.. and a great way to end the day.

Great article. My twins are 17 months, and they love books. I’ve tried reading the books to them, but it works out much better just to “discuss” the pictures. I’m hoping they’ll love reading as much as I do!

My daughter is nine and an avid reader. I would just like to throw in my two cents about reading aloud. Even though Emily reads alone for hours on end we still reserve a half an hour prior to bedtime for family reading when I read aloud a book to her and her Dad. We always choose a book that is a little ahead of her reading level. We know when we are ready to move to a new reading level when she takes the book out of my hands on her way to bed to read to herself. Her Dad isn’t crazy about that as he misses the end of the story 🙂

Great Kelly. My nine-year old was not a particularly early reader, but she has always loved books. My three year old is already telling me to read the “words” on the page, so who knows when it’s going to click for him!

That actually made me feel really good reading it. My oldest is only 2 1/2, but she LOVES books, she “reads” them, plays with them and looks at them. We read at least a couple books a day together. I really hope she does have a love for books still as she gets older.

Great topic indeed! I just wanted to share with everyone the great product that my son and I discovered this past summer that encourages reading. It is called the Reading Kaboodle and by a company called Bodemi http://www.bodemi.com/aboutkaboodle.asp